


Twisted Symphonies

by Fear



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blood and Gore, Desert Bluffs, Emotions, Not Happy, Oops, Pre-Strex Kevin, Psychological Torture, Torture, Tragedy, how he was disabled when Strex took over, kevin's backstory, maybe eventual romance with intern Vanessa?, probably not a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-05-20 23:19:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6029218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fear/pseuds/Fear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day was nice- hot, but not too arid, bright, but not quite cloudless, quiet, but not exactly still. Standing in the doorway, Kevin admired the beauty of the day, the irony of setting to situation, a small reminiscent of understatement prodding that this might be his last true freedom, but that was just a hunch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Exactly Still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jumping right into the agony, yay. Basically a brief account of Kevin defending the Desert Bluff Radio Station's entrance with his body as a shield. The podcast touched on the idea that this scenario caused him a disability, so I will elaborate on that later. Also, lots of pain

The day was nice- hot, but not too arid, bright, but not quite cloudless, quiet, but not exactly still. Standing in the doorway, Kevin admired the beauty of the day, the irony of setting to situation, a small reminiscent of understatement prodding that this might be his last true freedom, but that was just a hunch.

“Vanessa run!”

He heard the intern panicking behind him, searching for something, for anything to help, to defend themselves. He heard her documenting their happenings to the rest of Desert Bluffs, Vanessa’s voice cracked with fear, but fear undoubted, a justified breed of unease.

“I said run!”

Kevin continued to add whatever he could to his blockade that guarded the front entrance, secured with rolling office chairs and oak desks.

She paused in her recording, one hand wielding a microphone and the other a metal rod, the beginnings of tears climaxing in her eyes. “Run where Kevin? There is nowhere to run.” She turned back to the microphone. “Kevin and I are still trapped in the radio station, unharmed, but unsafe. Stay strong Desert Bluffs, reject the Smiling God, fight Strex, fight for your lives Desert Bluffs.”

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean- We are going to die here.”

Vanessa shook her head wordlessly, but her facial expression rambled on about her forgiveness until she spoke up. “I will see this revolution out until the end with you, all of Desert Bluffs will.” She handed him the microphone.

Loud thuds hammered at the front door, the only door. Vanessa rushed to replace the damage, to keep them out and defend the only mode of freedom their town had left- media.

“Stay strong Desert Bluffs,” Kevin emphasized one more time, perhaps one last time, before leaving the still recording microphone behind to help Vanessa.

The wall of desks and chairs was toppling, while outside the shouts and pleas of StrexCorp infected the air. Helicopters of unknown origin circled the building, not attacking but simply lurking, waiting, eager to see out Desert Bluff Radio Station’s demise and rebirth. They wanted to silence the only voice that the small town had left.

The thuds became stronger, the blockade crumbling in the wake of the company’s power.

“No. No…” Kevin did his best to defend their freedom, metaphorically and literally, in a sense of rare togetherness of romanticism and reality, fighting against an inevitable future.

Vanessa stopped. “I’m going to the roof, I might be able to distract them.” Without a response, the intern darted off, abandoning Kevin to the unknown and the unseen.

Desperate, he added his own body to the blockade, holding the door in place while StrexCorp persisted their gain of entrance, their gain of the last people foreign to the Smiling God.

Splintered wood screeched at the bombardment, the thuds now in equivalence to thunder. Kevin knew that his efforts were futile, but some instinctual part of him willed that he try. That was all that Kevin could do now- try.

The thudding came to a stop. Outside, StrexCorp employees plotted and whispered like the snakes they were, hissing through unfading smiles shadowed in hues of painless blood. Kevin clenched his eyes closed, taking in ragged breaths as the adrenaline dissipated as fast as it came. This was it, they were finally bibbing the voice, knocking out the last pawn to stand in the way of their wrath.

 _Boom_.

 

Wooden rubble littered the room, pierced with scrap metal from the bomb that they set off. Kevin noticed his surroundings before he noticed the harsh ringing piercing his ears and etching it's nauseating tune into his mind, into his sanity. From there his other senses brought to life the pain that withered down the back of his legs and torso, but it didn’t matter, he had to stand up, he had to try.

With his head throbbing like his own skull was trying to push its way out of his eyes, Kevin braced himself to stand, ignoring every alarm that went off, telling him to stay put, to give up, to submit. He had to try. He had to stay strong for Desert Bluffs, for the only life he had ever known.

Kevin wasn’t all too sure how, but he made it to the front door, blistered with the consequences of Strex’s small bomb to clear the blockade. The employees were just standing there, smiling with their horrible teeth protruding and their eyeless eyes staring down at him, lurking in wait just like the helicopters. They were watching him, like a fish in a tank, like a piece of art in a museum. They wanted to watch him struggle.

Ignoring whatever shrapnel lodged itself in him, whatever pain and fear enticed him, Kevin leaned into the doorway, leaving the last piece of his blockade still standing- himself. With his own body, Kevin covered as much space as he could, shielding the contents of the radio station, protecting everything they could take.

“Move Kevin, bow to the power of the Smiling God.”

Whatever he would say, it could come out wrong, in bursts of tears or protesting shouts. It would be better to remain silent and keep his angered banter to himself, but alas, Kevin was the voice of Desert Bluffs, and he had to try.

“I will not. Desert Bluffs will not bend to your will.”

They whispered again, turning to each other with horrific grins, before three of them emerged with aluminum bats. Kevin felt a tremor go through him, every fiber in his being screeching for him to run, to save himself, but he could not leave, he had to try. Kevin tightened his grip of the doorframe.

The first hit didn’t hurt as much as he expected, merely bringing him back to reality, pushing away the romanticism of self sacrifice and endurance to a reality of failure. The second one hurt more, this time cracking a rib and forcing a shout from Kevin’s mouth. The third was a strike to his kneecap, immobilizing him, only his arms holding him in place. He had to hold on, to protect everything the studio meant and represented, to protect whatever became of Vanessa, of protect Desert Bluffs.

The fourth brought him to his knees, his grip was loosening, he couldn’t hold on for much longer, but at the same time, he could not let go.

“Move Kevin, the Smiling God will not show you another mercy except in that of what you are to become.”

His first attempt in speech only resulted in a coughing fit, the fresh metallic taste of blood hot in his mouth. “No,” He eventually mumbled out. “I d-don’t need mercy.”

One of them stared right at him, or at least seemed to stare with the dark abysses of its eyes, the black sinkholes that dropped into a soulless mind. “You will.”  
He came down with the bat, snapping one of his arms away from the frame. Kevin held back tears, needing to keep his dignity, to keep a part of his freedom.

“Let go.”

All he could do was shake his head now. Kevin knew that once he opened his mouth now, nothing would come but agonized screams.

It hit again, flinging him into the radio station, his hand still reaching for the door. Now on the ground, defeated and overtook, the StrexCorp employees stood over him, sneering and smirking at Kevin’s ignorance and failure. One of them kicked away his trembling, reaching hand, still desperate to protect the doorway.

The others with bats hit him again, this time just for spite, striking again and again. Kevin curled into a fetal position, now protecting himself from the outside bluntness, shouting and quietly pleading. He listened to the snaps of his own bones breaking and cracking, like the beat to some twisted symphony.

Kevin listened to the symphony, a music that accompanied the hushed voices of his consciousness and the loud screeches his unknowing mouth made. He had nothing to offer now but to listen, to withdraw his part, to observe how this particular twisted symphony would conclude. The bats continued to hit him, but the pain was no longer present with it as his vision started to fade. With his last free vision, he started out the doorway, now infected as the rest of Desert Bluffs. Outside, the day was nice- hot, but not too arid, bright, but not quite cloudless, quiet, but not exactly still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter I will do more on the inner works of Strex Corp and introduce some other characters. Also, Ted the Weatherman will be revealed with a twist, so stay tuned. thanks for reading, and if you have anything to say, comments make my day :)


	2. The Dash Between Space and Time (Space-Time)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a while, I've been consumed with the work and oddities of life. This chapter is a little short, but I enjoyed painting some imagery in there, so I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading my story :)

In Desert Bluffs, it is never completely dark. The days are lit up with a sun that is too close, and the nights with a moon that is always full. The city decorates itself with fluorescent neon lightings to frame their signs and advertise their business, constantly pestering the civilians to buy into unnecessary necessary materials. Even when the power goes out during weekly catastrophic events in the city, some distant light still blinks, some deranged weather still strikes with lightning too bright to sleep through.

Now it was dark. Behind the bright orange and bright yellows of StrexCorp, only lay darkness, complete void and nothingness. 

Kevin wasn’t really too sure when he woke up, he wasn’t even positive that he was awake with nothing but the sensation of pain to tell him that the world still even existed. They must have put something over his head or blindfolded him, hell, they might have already taken his eyes just like the rest of the StrexCorp employees, but some part of him knew that they wanted him to feel that. Kevin could not smell anything or hear anything, not even the ringing from the explosion. He couldn’t even move, held down by some mysterious restraint. He was completely stranded in a limbo caught between the memories of his past and his fear of the future, laying senselessly in a nowhere far away from his home. 

Some amount of time passed, but with only using his mode of consciousness and cognitive registration, Kevin had no perception of just how much time passed him by. They had robbed him of his universe, what he knew as space, tearing out the dash between space-time and flinging it away like some scientific rejection. It is almost hysterical how ignorant to time people really are, how our perception twists the notion of our watches into different tessellated frequencies, dismantled by whatever is passing through the transmitters of the mind. It is even more strange that the universe exists identically to us, crushed under its own laws. 

His time in silence did end, however. 

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, I know what comes after this.”

Kevin recognized the voice, a voice that he heard nearly every day back at the station- Ted the Weatherman. He had disappeared a few weeks ago, and everyone else at the station suspected StrexCorp. Leading up to all of this, the citizens of Desert Bluffs were disappearing regularly, just simply, taken, only to return as brainwashed, scatter-minded, bloody-mouthed, smiling psychopaths. It wasn’t much of a surprise that Ted was taken as well, though random disappearances does not stray from the ordinary at Desert Bluffs. 

“Ted?”

“The Weatherman, yes. Not part of those Strex bastards, not yet, but I will be, soon. So very soon.” His voice was already cracked, but the last few syllables of his mutterings caved into dissipating hope, something sad and twisted spoken between the words. 

Kevin was confused, but he often was in this life, so he made no notion of it. 

“It was me. I told them how to get to the station, how to avoid all the traps we set in place, how to get past the moat I built and the strange dark voodoo Vanessa used. You are here because of me. Desert Bluffs will surrender because of me.”

Kevin felt like he should be upset, as if some turbulent anger was hovering just outside of his skull, tapping on the glass to get in, but nonetheless was stuck outside the consciousness. Truly, Kevin only felt solemn and tired. A little dizzy too, too dizzy to be angry anymore. “Whatever happened, I know that you had no choice but to give them the information.” His words were only halfhearted.

Ted caught onto his tone and what really lay between the words, making some small sound to himself before responding. “Please forgive me.” Such damaged words. 

Kevin was about to say something, to tell him that without Ted, the rebellion wouldn't have lasted as long as it did, that he was important, that he was still only human, only a weatherman, but someone else intervened before he could. Kevin heard a small struggle as Ted was paraded out of the room and presumably taken away yet again. Kevin would never see Ted again, and would never be able to forgive him. Maybe he didn’t deserve it, or maybe he already knew that he had it.

Kevin was left in the dark yet again, this time, his thoughts being more vibrant and bringing light to his synapses in a strange assortment of comfort that at least his mind was still functioning. He thought about Ted, he worried about Vanessa, and occasionally the nostalgia of his childhood cradled him into a sleep with warm dreams. Strange how important the past is to us, far more so than the present or even the future. 

This did not last either. Someone else entered the room, but it was no one that Kevin knew, a stranger, a person faceless to him and wrapped in the shadows of a dark that he could not see. 

“I have to admit, out of all of you desert people you put up the biggest fight. We at Strex admire your strength, but are disgusted at your sense of… individualism? No, your need to, er, rebel.” The voice was thick and slow like honey, but honey that has metastasized into a crusted molasses and spilled over all surfaces, creating a thick coat of sticky rot, imprisoning anything that fell into its wake. He purred over his words and hacked at the mention of rebellion like a cat would on a hairball.

Kevin was taken a little aback at the pure force and power that pursued the voice, the voice of Strex perhaps. 

“That’s okay, most don’t gather the courage to speak for a little while. There is a difference between being scared rather than having cowardice.” 

“Where is Vanessa?” Kevin didn’t really want to hear the man, or monster, or whatever it was go on into a monologue on the fears of humanity, nor did he really want to hear that awful, putrid voice again, but he did want to know if Vanessa was safe. She had been on his mind for the past few hours, or however long it has been. She had been on his mind before all of this as well- her thick black hair, her eyes that were more grey than blue, how she held herself and walked with a sense of pride. Vanessa is a good intern, but also a good friend. 

The Strex thing grumbled, sputtering messily. “You have more pressing concerns. You must learn the foundation of the Smiling God, you must learn to worship, to work, to obey, and most importantly, to smile.”

The man with the wicked, grotesque voice slithered forward, his wet breathing filling the room. 

Kevin felt the beginnings of a deep, primal fear start to coil in his guts. “Is she okay?”

It laughed, loud and hiccuped into bubbling clicks of appeal. Kevin felt himself flinching away, not even able to stand the noise anymore. He missed the quiet of the dark. 

“The better question to ask is ‘will you be okay by the end of this?’.” He removed the bag over his head finally, first exposing Kevin to a bombardment of white and yellow and orange. Then the colors hazed into a chaotic setting of ellipticals spiraling in his aching eyes and uneasy head, painting an image of a room, which qualities don't matter, and the man, whose qualities don't matter either, but were repulsive nonetheless. His smile was so long, so sharp and pointed, horrific and disturbing. 

Kevin felt himself flinch even more, the mood of the setting already torturing him, already making his stomach wreath with anticipation and dread. He knew what was coming and how terrible it would be. But what frightened him most was that he would not be able to win this one. Kevin would give up, no matter what. He would sacrifice everything to save himself, just as Ted had done, just as all of the Strex employees had done, and at that point, Kevin would lose himself. Kevin would die and wither away into a smiling corpse, and there was nothing he could do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More (pain, probably physical next chapter) to come soon, stay tuned!
> 
> Also, on a happier note, I might add some fluffy stuff with my new WTNV OTP which I made up in my head- The Mighty Glow Cloud and Deb the Sentient Patch of Haze. 
> 
> Comments make my day, hint hint


	3. Denial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading. This chapter Lauren will be introduced, and the 'torture' part will be as well, mildly.

Kevin liked to talk really loudly when he was around his friends. He would shout jokes at them and laugh hysterically at their correlated witticism, proclaiming to all of their surroundings how content they were in that moment. He liked to dwell on topics and banter at unresolved cases, as his friends played along with, his friends being mostly Vanessa, Ted, and a scientist that recently moved to the Bluffs. After he had returned home, there would always be some strain on his vocal cords from talking so loudly, so happily, for so long. 

Kevin didn’t know how long he had been screaming, but his vocal cords made no notion of hurt in contrast to the rest of his physical self. Everything else hurt but his voice- his ears from all the terrible sounds he was making, his nose from the metallic scent of blood getting caught over and over in his breath, his eyes from tearing up but not being able to cry, and of course every damaged piece of bone. 

“This will all end when you give in. There will be no more pain, no more distraught or tragedy. The Smiling God will cleanse you of all this darkness. 

In his mind, Kevin resolved over and over that it was better to be human any day over the soulless monsters of StrexCorp. The human soul will always be plagued with pain, but you can’t have light without it. A real God, if there was one, would know that. Instead of expressing this, all Kevin could do was scream. This was what he was reduced to, the voice of Desert Bluffs now incapable of any language but that of terrible pain. 

Recognizing Kevin’s defiance, the employee snapped his left index finger, only leaving his thumb in tact. He screeched, unable to look at his mangled hand without feeling the compulsive urge to puke all over himself. 

“The power of Strex will help fix you, teach you to never know how to frown again. Don’t you want that, a life of no pain?”

Kevin whimpered to himself, still not able to put his solemn thoughts into english words. If there was one thing that this life had taught him, it was that there was always an intrinsic value to strife. A life without pain is not life at all, but merely a state of ignorant existence. There was no depth, no experience, no meaning. He knew that he would lose that life eventually, that he would eventually immerse himself in this life of nothingness and false smiles, but Kevin still felt worth in holding onto his humanity for as long as he could. Even if every bone in his body was to break in consequence. 

It lifted his thumb, slowly bending it back. He felt his muscles tense up, fear running rabid through his vessels and circulating through every part of him as his heart tightened with anxiety that dwelt on the knowledge of what was to come. Kevin trembled, still unable to cry. 

Snap. The sound was just as morbid as that of the employee's voice. Frigid, indifferent, effortless. Kevin yelled, but almost halfheartedly as he felt the nausea creep back up on him. He hacked, getting a small glimpse of his broken hand with all the digits pointing in strange angles, like arrows giving direction in response to a fork in a road. He looked away quickly, but it was too late, and he was sick. 

The employee seemed to raise his eyebrows, though there were no eyes glinting underneath. 

“Let go Kevin. Let it all go.”

He choked on the terrible taste in his mouth as he stared up at the Strex monster, the blood in it’s mouth filling the entire room with its stench and rot. Kevin took a deep breath, as he straightened himself against the tethers that held him firmly to something- a chair? A post? It didn’t matter. 

“You must let go.”

He spat at the employee in response, his head rushing with adrenaline in the small act of bravery, of rebellion. That was who he was, he had to hold that tight. What was the purpose of life if it is not restless? 

Infuriated, the employee smacked him hard across the head, sending his ears buzzing and his eyesight foggy. It then stormed out of the room, a thick door clamoring as it locked behind him. 

Half in tire and half in relief, Kevin closed his eyes and let his head sink backwards, trying to lose consciousness. His mind was still too worked up to shut down, and started itching with fear almost as soon as it began to relax. He snapped his eyes back open, upset with himself for not having more control over the situation, and more so, afraid at how little control he did have. 

He subconsciously took in his surroundings, a small room with lots of colors, but strangely at the same time, no color. One wall was constructed from one-way glass, his own reflection staring back at him. Kevin was in fact leaning against a post that extended up and through the ceiling with hypothetically no end, brown leather restraints looping around the pole and over his knees, waist, chest and throat like a snake coiling around a branch. His face was already sunken and tired, the effects of dehydration and lack of food setting in quicker than he thought. His cheekbones protruded from his face as if they were struggling against his skin, and his once thick eyebrows were now hemmed in worry and fatigue. Kevin’s eyes that were once a warm shade of overcasted grey were now nothing but tasteless slits, unable to give gateway into his mind as there was nothing but pain and fear beneath. 

That and worry. Kevin was still worried about Vanessa. Not as much as he used to be, but still concerned. He hated the idea that she was also suffering through this, or already had and was now one of them. She could be dead, or maybe, just maybe, she somehow got away. Whatever the case, he was still worrying about her, but also had an overwhelming selfish concern for his own well being. He did not want to be hurt anymore. 

Someone else entered, this time a woman. 

“Hello Kevin.”

She was taller than the man, her blonde hair thinned out over years of over-brushing it, and her face contorted like it had been molded by a child. Her smile was worse than the man’s, somehow longer and wider with bone showing in a few terrible places. Her eyes were the worst- the sockets still empty, but the presence of watchfulness still there and still revealing. They were blackened as if they had been burned out, but possessed some wicked wisdom of what was and what was to come, accompanying her smile with a manipulation of not just her prisoner, but everything that was happening, as if she herself had some sort of grasp in a higher dimension. “I’m Lauren.”

Kevin flinched away, knowing he had not even experienced the worst of what was to come. This Lauren knew what she was doing, she knew that she would be able to out-will Kevin and force him into submission, force him out of his own head. 

“You must speak eventually Kevin, all subordinates must answer to their higher ups.” She paused, turning over in her head if she needed to explain herself. “Don’t you see? You are already part of Strex, already a part in the unified machine of this cooperation, functioning to serve the great Smiling God. You can deny as much as you wish, and then you will be angry, and then you will beg, and then you break, and at that point you will accept. It is the only way, and the process has already started.”

Kevin felt a pit grow in his stomach. He had gone through those stages before, in a different situation in a different life. It is the stages people supposedly go through when they lose someone, the freudian ways of dealing with tragedy, defense against reality. In truth, after tragedy, the stages just get stuck on repeat in some strange eternal round-a-bout of broken vinyl scratching at the surface of self. Here he was again, one again confronted by whatever this was. Tragedy?

“No Kevin, no. You are not in grief. You are in terror.”

He stared at her, his heart slamming against his ribs. How did she know his mind so well? What breed of parasite was she? 

Lauren made some motion, signaling for the man to come back in. This time he entered with some sort of iron fire-poke. 

“Deny as long as you need to Kevin, it is only natural, but you must move onto the next stage eventually. You must or it will only cause you more pain.”

The man was so close, holding the iron piece closer and closer. He felt the heat resonating from it now. They must have put it let it sit in hot embers, allowing for the metal to heat into a fiery rage. They were going to brand him like cattle. 

“Do it, Ryan.”

Ryan, the one with the terrible voice, prodded him with the fire-poke, the hot metal fizzing with his boiling flesh, burning past the layers of his skin and metastasizing into his muscle and blood. Kevin didn’t hear himself screaming, but he knew that he was. He knew that Lauren was right, in some, terrible way. Not only would it be easier to give in, but nearly symbolic. One last human act of suffering through stages of, well, life. But even deeper than that, the dark bit that sat behind countless layers of his soul made small whispers into his neurons, into his emotion, wondering if it would be better to just die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, more updates are to come, so stay tuned! Also the blood and gore will be progressively getting worse, so, warning.
> 
> Comments make my day, hint hint.


	4. Anger and Entropy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to update this, no it is not abandoned. Just super busy.

“Do you want to know what has happened to your hometown, Desert Bluffs?”

Kevin shook his head, tears streaming down his face as his entire torso was a-lit with fiery pain, burns etching their circles everywhere, some even festering with the beginnings of infection. Lauren and Ryan’s wrath didn’t end there. They had started hitting him, with hands, feet, a bat, a belt. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered, nothing mattered. Kevin never thought that he would have regretted doing what was best, being strong for not only himself but the entire community, but in this moment he regretted being the initiator of the rebellion. Why didn’t they just give in? Why did he have to go and play hero, why did he have to try?

“We burned it. We took every man, woman, and child. They all belong to us now, just as you belong to us.” Lauren smiled, she smiled and smiled and never stopped as if she ran the entire damn universe. He hated her, he hated her even more than Ryan, though it was him who was inflicting all this agony. “We have set them to work, to rebuild in orange and yellow as they now bleed orange and yellow for the great Smiling god!” She looked at him displeasingly. “You still bleed red.”

Blood was everywhere. There was so much of it that it was hard to Kevin to even associate it with himself, as if the crimson fluids belonged to someone else, someone long dead. “Fuck you. Screw you all to he-”

Ryan slammed a bat into his side, a bat that looked nearly identical to the ones that attacked him back at the radio station. Kevin lost his breath, his eyes bulged from his aching skull. He used to feel the ribs cracking, under the blue and black skin, but there was no sound this time. There was nothing left to break. 

He took a short breath, as that was all he could fit in his aching lungs, but it was enough to talk again, to use his voice. It was his strongest weapon, and he still had it. He could still use it to instead protect himself over the Bluffs. It was all he could do, he was still only human, after all. 

“Is this all you got?”

Ryan hit him again, this time over the head- light enough to not cause any fatal damage, but strong enough for Kevin to hear his brain shifting, his mentality breaking under the pressure, his humanity draining as quickly as the blood gushed from his wounds. His vision blurred, more so than usual, and his mind stopped thinking altogether. He was reduced to raw instinct, devoid of reason or compassion. Only anger, only hate. 

“IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?!?” Kevin lurched against the restraints, locking his sight on Lauren, wanting to rip her smile off her smug face, still grinning down on him like an owner would a pet. 

“There is no limit to the power of the Smiling god.” Lauren stood, looming over him as she brushed back his filthy hair from his face. She took his chin in her hand as she held it close, looking into his eyes with her eyeless eyes. “You will be such a wonderful employee. Do you know why?”

Kevin didn’t answer, just simply looked away.

With her other hand, Lauren grabbed a fist of his hair and pulled it, reinstating his eye contact with her empty sockets, reassuring her dominance. “Because when the most rebellious of people break, they become the most obedient. Everyone exists in two states of extreme, and the point comes when you have to choose one. Before you have chosen to reject us, but now you must choose to embrace us.” She continued to pull his hair, until he felt his scalp bleeding and his eyes watering.

He was only running on fumes now, fumes of hatred that boiled in his gut. Every decision that he made now was solely based on that. “No. You will have to kill me first.”

Lauren’s smile seemed to waver, even though it still remained gaping at him like a crack in the earth, opening up into a deep, unknown darkness. She now yanked his hair, the roots still hemmed in his skin as parts of his scalp were torn away. 

He cried out as Lauren dropped the bloody hair in his lap. Kevin stopped looking in the mirror to his side a long time ago, whatever that scale of time meant now, but he was sure he looked like one of them, besides the eerie smile and lack of eyes. 

“Ryan, continue please.”

“Of course, it is my pleasure Lauren.” Such a terrible, terrible voice. 

Kevin trembled, so desperately wanting to close his eyes and wish it all away, pretend it wasn’t there like how you pretend you aren’t at the dentist office while staring up at some fluorescent light mosaic of a beach. He wished he could retract back in, spool himself up and hibernate in his preconscious, but Kevin couldn’t do that. Lauren wouldn’t allow it. She would just keep dragging him out prodding him to stay awake, force feeding him this experience, this hell. 

Ryan socked him under the jaw. He felt his teeth shift in place and his face swell under the pressure. At least it wasn't his head. His head hurt so much, his head, it, his… 

 

Vanessa used to do this thing, back at the station. She would go do the tasks of an intern- file papers, fetch coffee, brew strange black foreboding potions while chanting in made up languages, the usual, but whenever making coffee, she would always add one sugar, whether you asked for it or not. She did this with everyone at the station, it was weird, but oddly pleasant. Like how a kid making their own food is oddly pleasant, or when a high schooler goes off to college is oddly pleasant. Independence. Small, almost intangible acts, but still effective in some strange mental sense that only humans can see, no, can feel. We feel pride, individualism, sense of self only within ourselves, but are even more overwhelmed with an oddly pleasant joy. Maybe because though it feels so alone, it is nice to see, to feel that we are not. That everyone’s gears still turn under the same oil, that subjectively we are so different, but faith in universal union brings universal objectivity. 

 

Kevin finally got his blackout, but it was more troubled than tranquil. He jolted awake covered in a cold sweat, some strange figments of his dream still looming over his frontal lobe even though the recollection of his dream spewed out of his memory, ticking away like how sand falls from an hourglass. 

No one was there. Kevin was left alone with the ache and gripping acidic incompletion that was his pain, his raw physical pain. He would claim that psychologically he was pained too, but there wasn’t much of a psyche to examine. He suddenly wished that there was, just so that he could feel human, that he could exist as he did before all of this- talkative, free, happy, at peace in some restless, hungry monster that he occupied, that is, life. But more so, he was grateful. The ability to stop thinking, to stop trying to process everything, to let go and not have to look back was nice. No, it wasn’t really nice as it was nothing. Just like the darkness from the beginning- lonely, pure, indifferent.

Kevin, who had an opinion and a voice in everything was now solely indifferent. Instinctual, strained, only trying for the sake of trying.

The door propped open.

“Is he awake?”

“Yes, yes, he is awake.”

That voice, the mutilated, sour, soiled voice. Rusted, yet almost overly oiled, murmured, but murmured so loudly. 

“Yes what?”

“Yes master.”

“The Smiling God demands obedience.”

Kevin didn’t recognize the other voice, the one that made the mistake. It sure as hell wasn’t Lauren, but though he didn’t recognize it, it still felt vaguely familiar. It’s inhabitant entered through the sliver of light that separated the door rim from the wall, piercing it like a needle burrowing through open skin.   
The figure walked out from under the hanging shadows, seeping like melted wax from the ceiling above.

Like the voice, Kevin didn’t recognize it, but was familiar with it. It’s eyes, freshly gutted and it’s mouth sadly twisted into a grin, a sad, foreign grin, laughing at the past. 

“Ted?”

It said nothing, staring, boreing into Kevin’s own face, full of nothing but indifference, indifference staring right back at him. It just stood there, as if it felt sorry for him.

“Ted?!”

Kevin looking into the dismantled face of his friend, a withered skull sitting on his shoulder, laughing, mocking, pointing fun at how many looks of horror Kevin still wore like outdated clothing. 

“What the HELL did you do DO to him?!”

Who was he even screaming at? Lauren? Ted? The Smiling God? A different, perhaps realer God? His head hurt so much. 

Ted looked unaffected, his once familiar face withered into shades of putrid gray and brown and black and red, his eyes nothing but pits in the pavement of his head, his mouth spliced open, hanging from tendril of loose skin under the jaw. This was not Ted. This would never be Ted again. This was the future of Desert Bluffs, the future of Kevin. 

“A looker, isn’t he?” Lauren hissed, snaking forward to taunt Kevin, to worm herself into him, to spread this regional wide pandemic of murder to the mind. 

Kevin felt the tears hot on his face, his stomach lurching and boiling, prompting him to yell and tear and scream, but his tire overruling and keeping him still- a statue with its foundation broken, teetering against gravity, giving into the forces of entropy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect more soon(ish)!!


	5. Bargaining With No Moral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of posting. I have been working at getting an internship (which I finally got!), and of course school drags on with endless boatloads of work. You know how it is. Well here is the next part. If you haven't noticed yet, Lauren's weird "stages" are loosely based around the stages of grief (life.) Also, like always, thanks for reading :)

Kevin wasn’t really Kevin anymore. Kevin was hanging in the air like a bad smell that won’t go away, watching from the outside, tapping on the glass occasionally to reclaim his own mind, but such a glass was four inches thick, and such a tap was too quiet for even him to hear. He was a ghost waiting for his body to die, but it was instead condemned to this eternal purgatory, stretched between reality and non reality, truth and untruth, closely examined, searched for any theme, a moral, a clue as to why?, but what a fool's journey it has become. Couldn’t he see there was no moral, no theme, couldn’t he do as Lauren suggested and just let go? Why couldn’t he let go? I will… Yes I accept the Smiling God… Yes... “

Outside this exoskeleton he heard himself mumble empty pleads, hollow promises, sentencing himself to maximum sentences just to make it end. 

“Please…”

There was no response besides his body recoiling under the cruelty of a knife, the evil of authoritorial dominations. Anything would bend under the influence of authority, any moral could be spliced away from the soul and replaced with something that was never yours, something that alters the self. This is the birth of evil, this is the dawn of awful, this is why Eve ate that fruit in a different faith, a different dimension, a different place than here. Their will imposed upon ourselves, because when it comes down to it, humans have limited defenses to fend for whatever dark matters we have gained through experience, our most sacred artworks of self. 

“Just stop… I accept, I…”

They wouldn’t listen. Now that he was finally telling them what they wanted to hear, it was like they suddenly didn’t care, like all of this was for the high of it, whimsical, fantastical, strange pleasure of sadism. It was like they lost hold of the inborn virtue code that we are all supposed to have, like they were dissected and someone rearranged their head, their heart. Kevin heard himself crying again. The voice of Desert Bluffs was a wail, a bargain, a plea. 

“You are doing so well Kevin, so well!”

Lauren spoke to him like how a mother would to a child, praising it for some petty task. It was nauseating. The contrast was nauseating. Her sheer artificial optimism against the disparity of the situation, the unreal white against the all too real black, her untruth against the unmoving truth that one way or another, Kevin was going to lose his sense of self. He did not fear death, because after death, there is the probability of eternity, of continuation, but here, this was a sentence to the absorption of nothing. 

“Yes, yes...please stop.”

“Oh, poor Kevin. So lost and confused, aimlessly talking to the dark, but not many people are willing to speak to the dark now? Most are just afraid of it. Not Kevin, no not Kevin.” Lauren grinned- or grinned happier, if that was possible. Her absent eyes seemed to shine, her absent face beamed with satisfaction. “You are so close Kevin. You should be proud of yourself! Not everyone makes it this far!

Ted made it this far, he must have endured all of this. A terrible, disturbing feeling rioted in his gut, setting up camp as it decided to stay around for a while. Everyone he knew, they would or would not get to this very point in existence as well, their worlds would align with his and cast a terrible, horrific orange and yellow shadow on his town. Has Vanessa lived through this corresponding hell as well? 

Some power tool screeched somewhere, someone was powering up the next act of this lurid circus show. 

“Don’t…”

His words echoed around, more sound than word, it’s meaning too far gone now to actually be heard. And they didn’t hear as they plunged- whatever it was- into his side. The power tool wormed its way through flesh, crawling through blood and muscle as bits of Kevin were thrown into the air and splattered about the room. 

From outside himself, Kevin heard him screaming, he heard the pain, he just stopped registering as something physical, but instead something overwhelmingly mental. They had peeled back his skin, torn through his muscles and broke past the bones to expose Kevin’s bare soul, and where now trying to contort that too into an object of torture. He was not broken, but instead bent in every direction, webbed out over his inability to stand up, to fend for himself, to be Kevin. This web was weighed down by too many dew drops, too many burdens, and he was so ready to let go, but now Strex was preventing him from even doing that. He could not accept the Smiling God because now, for some reason, they would not permit for the Smiling God to accept him. They were forcing him to run in confused circles, chasing nothing. 

The power tool moved to a different location. More pink and red, more flecks of crimson dappling the floor as if God himself were placing each bloody speck like a star in the sky, laying out the blueprints of a gory galaxy. 

“Please! Stop!”

Broken words. He was bent but his words were in fact broken, his most powerful weapon reduced to out of tune sounds, twisted symphonies. 

“Is he loosing too much blood?” Musty, moist, soggy voice. Like it was soaked in foreign liquids for too long. 

“No. He is just fine.”

Untruths. He was not fine. He was metastasizing his fear, he was reduced to animalistic tendencies, he was a ghost. Were they Untruths? Or in fact realities that provided untrue themes? Maybe the reality was that there was none, no reason. Could you have a story with no moral? Could you live life without one?”

A third location now, into the bone of his knee. What sounds he made did not belong to mankind. They did not belong on this earth, in this universe. That were transplanted here by Strex, replacing a healthy organ with a dying one just so they could watch the victim wither away. 

“I accept! I accept the Smiling- I… Stop! I… NO!”

“Oh Kev, don’t you worry. Everything does end, this will end, we just haven't reached the climax of the story yet. Don’t you want to see what happens? Then after that you can go back to your radio station and do what you do best, report. Speak.”

The sound of the power tool overpowered Lauren’s voice as it screamed into his joint, as Kevin joined the chorus of agonized shouts. Twisted, Twisted Symphon-

 

Vanessa did this thing where she would hum while working, even when Kevin was on air, she would hum songs no one but her knew, she would hum like she was trying to keep up with the beat of Kevin’s voice like the broadcast was also a song. She would hum the same note over and over again, trying to get it just right. She would hum like she was pretending to sing, but was too afraid her voice would crack. She would hum like how spring hums, with the post-storm breeze spooling through the atmosphere, with the summer birds singing quiet hymns, insects pollinating flowers that had just learned to bloom in color, the hum of leaves rattling in aspens, of children playing games only they understood, of lawnmowers and conversations. She would hum like that, like the spring never faded, like the breeze was always spooling. Like post storm, like the worst of it was over. A melody that meant nothing to everyone except her. 

 

“Kevin! Kevin! Yes that’s right, wake up now… wake up…”

Lauren was patting his face back into consciousness, his eyes appealing to his surrounding, the position of where he was rushing back though his brief forgetfulness of where he was.

“No more.” It was more of a statement than a plea, like he was just affirming to himself that there could be no more. Anymore, and Kevin would not only be gone, but as would his sanity and his knowledge and memory and maybe even his life. 

“Oh Kevin…” Lauren whispered, her face that was not a face inches from his own, her sockets extending its wrath into his own irises. Her smile was faked, her personality was faked, but for once her sing-song voice was not. This was all of Lauren speaking now, undertoned with no moral, laced with fortitude. “Oh Kevin… There is so much more to come…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments revered with godly standards. Thanks again guys!
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> Also I apologize in advance for the next chapter.


	6. Grieving Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so this is basically the last chapter, but there will be an epilogue after this, to elaborate on a few more details and bring everything to wraps. Anyways, here is this chapter- I tried to make it pretty heavy on the heart.

A few weeks back, the Desert Bluffs radio station had a party. It wasn’t too big, really only to celebrate the end of the horrific Valentine's day the city had just endured. Everyone was there- Ted, Vanessa, even station management made an appearance. It was probably the last time they were all together, still smiling, still smiling without the need to do so in the presence of the Smiling God, without any reason to do so except that they loved each other. They the were the family that none of them asked for, but all desperately needed in the absence of togetherness, in the delusion of connectivity. They were related by empathy, by inside jokes and friendship, and now they were all related by their blood that runs at the point of this orange and yellow sword. This god that was going to not going to kill them, but force them into living in a hell, related by loss and terror, by never having the capability for for love, or any emotion, ever again. They were all going to be tethered together by long smiles and eyeless sockets. That was the last time they were worryless, a small fraction of the universe where they all were able to forget their names, to merge in with the world and ditch all burdens. The last moment of joy before Strex. Before this.

“Oh Kev.”

There she was, Lauren. That awful demon, shadow that lurked, smiling and laughing while she tore apart all of it. Kevin had never wanted to kill anyone, he had never had the need to hate, but in the moment he was willing to kill her, even if it cost him his life, or anyone else’s life. The only thing he knew for certain was that the world would be one less shade red without her. 

“Kevin, honey. You need to stop dreaming. You will want to see this.”

It was a good party with stupid games, junk food, and cheap decorations. All of them sharing stories that they could rehearse line for line, stories everyone didn’t know outside of Kevin and Vanessa and Ted. His closest friends. His family.

“Kiddo, the sun's coming up in a few hours. When it does it will all be done. I promise. You just have to keep your eyes open for this last bit. You can do that, can’t you?” 

Kevin didn’t even know if he could force his lungs to take in one more breath. He didn’t even know if he could move or talk or do anything except wait for his heart to slow down, for his brain activity to go dead, to fall back into nothingness. He was so close to the end now. Just let it be done, just let him go. 

“Kevin?” This voice was higher, not slurred in blood or disfigurements, not the voice of Strex corp. This voice was one he knew well. 

“Vanessa?”

“Yea, yea it’s me. Are- shit. What the hell did they do to you? Oh Kevin, oh-”

“It- It is okay.” He forced himself to open his eyes, just to make sure that she was actually there, to make sure his reality hadn’t finally caved into insanity. And her face was there. Freckled and smooth, her eyes a warm hazel, her hair a dark auburn, her brow twisted into the shape of worry. She placed a hand on him, pushing the mat of hair out of his own face. He felt his body try to flinch away, but he knew that this contact was not the kind that Lauren practiced, this was gentle, caring, strong and beautiful yet simple. 

“We are going to be okay.” Her voice cracked, her eyes swelled with water doing its best not to turn into tears. She fell into him, embracing him, her warmth putting a mind that had for so long been on edge, finally at ease. He allowed himself to stop tensing up his muscles, to look away from the awning mouth of death so that he could in turn look into the whispering strength of Vanessa. Holding him up. Fixing parts of him he didn’t even realize were broken. “We will be okay,” She repeated, not letting go as her hot tears dappled Kevin’s shoulder. 

“Aw. Kevin and Vanessa sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” Lauren stepped out from the dark casting shadows of the room, her smile cracking with pleasure. 

Kevin felt Vanessa tense up as she pulled away and stood to face Lauren, her eyes no longer warm but laced in something far more brave, something far more confident. 

She revealed a small dagger from her sleeve. 

“Oh how long have you been hanging onto that thing?” Lauren said, her tone implying that she had always known about Vanessa's secret weapon.

“Long enough to know when to strike. We are getting out of here Kevin.” Vanessa’s knuckles went white as she tried to keep herself from shaking before she lurched at Lauren, swinging the knife to strike Lauren’s face. The Strex employee side stepped her, smiling, dancing around Vanessa as if to taunt her. 

“Come on, give it all you got.”

Vanessa sneered at Lauren before striking again, this time going for the gut. Lauren snickered as she grabbed Vanessa’s wrist, snapping it out of the way before it could’ve been planted into her gut. 

Ryan slammed into Vanessa, pushing her to the ground where she thrashed, the dagger still in hand, still hopeful, still aching for freedom. She was still hanging on, just as Kevin hanged onto that doorframe for so long, collapsed and broken but yet with a mindset of steel. Even then, Kevin could not hold on to the door forever, and neither could Vanessa. 

“Watch out!” Kevin yelled, his own voice almost unrecognizable, tired and sore and scratchy. “Behind you!” 

But it was too late. Distracted by the bulk of Ryan, Vanessa hadn’t seen Lauren behind her, kicking Vanessa hard in the head, sending her moaning in pain.

“Vanessa!” Kevin screamed again, ramming up against the restraints that held him, envisioning himself tearing them apart, saving Vanessa, saving Desert Bluffs, getting the hell out. But he couldn’t. All he could do was struggle and watch as Lauren kicked the intern in her rib cage, the dagger falling from her hands. 

“That was fun. But alas, it is time to move on. Ryan, would you-”

Ryan grabbed Vanessa by her shoulders, bringing her up to her feet as Lauren reached down for the knife, admiring its animosity. Grinning at something terrible concocting in her own black, rotting synapses. 

“Well Kevin, here goes nothing.”

Without a grin, or a snicker, or any taunt, nothing that revealed that Lauren was having the time of her life or felt anything other than the pure need for death, she drove the knife into Vanessa’s chest.

“NO!”

Vanessa’s eyes, her determined, strong, gentle hazel eyes hesitated for a moment, looking out at Kevin for help, as if she was pleading him to do something, anything. Looking out at him as if he was her last tether to reality, just as she was for him. And then her eyes dimmed, neither in love or in anger, just simply emotionless. Nothing. 

Her eyes glazed over, her hazel eyes faded a shade redder, as she toppled over, hitting the ground with a thud. 

“VANESSA!”

A crimson halo circled out from the wound, pooling around her body as her chest heaved once, and then went still. She had hung on when Kevin could not, she had been the only thing left in Kevin’s life at this point, the only thing worth protecting, worth loving, worth living for, and now she too was gone. Just a corpse bleeding out in front of him a few feet away. He shouted out, wailing, yelling at the universe, or Lauren, or God, but there was no answer. 

“Vanessa…” He asked again, as if to plead to the world that this was not her end, but his only response was his heart slowly realizing that he would never be able to tell her how he felt. That he would never be able to tell her just how significant she was. Tears blurred his vision, contorting the world into a strange limbo of shapes that didn't match up, of things that no longer made sense. 

“It's over, Kev.” Lauren’s voice had a tone of pity in it, but it was artificial, faked. As if she was trying to feel sympathy but simply forgot how. 

Vanessa’s eyes were still locked open, still staring into Kevin, but no longer was asking for him to help her, were no longer fighting or trying. In the absence of that force of will, her eyes seemed not to belong to her anymore, just a stranger’s irises gazing off into a place that was just behind Kevin, a place that was perhaps better than this one, a place that Kevin had long wished to go to by now. His head used to be filled with darkness and somehow that was good. It powered the soul, it ignited his life and experiences with importance that was not entirely joyful or horrifying. That darkness was drained. That nothingness had overwhelmed him now but not in the sight of his own death, but in Vanessa's. 

He was dead with her, but just trapped here to witness the aftermath. Just trapped here, in a torture that could never be outdone by a knife or a power tool, or anything Ryan or Lauren could do. It was Kevin’s turn now. It was his turn to play torturer to himself and there was no escape. There could be no hope. There could be no return, no grievance no recovery, no growth. This was an enigma of mankind, but yet here he was, his soul drowned out in Vanessa's blood, now running hot with his own. 

 

The pain, emotional, physical, mental, didn’t hurt anymore. They were really only the same thing now, a hum in the background of what was happening in the immediate present. He was a virtual particle, stuck in this nothingness, stealing the life of the future to fade in and out of reality on different wavelengths, different mindsets, different views on this dark world reduced to charred ash.

Lauren loomed overhead, her own shadow the same shade as that ash- not a warm grey or a pure white, but black. Dark, dead. She loomed with something that shone. It was the first thing that had really emitted what seemed to be a natural light like, the sun. It did not shine in yellow or orange or in fluorescence. Not even in a steady stream of white light- just sunlight, starshine beating down into his eyes and oozing past his optic nerve and into his frontal lobe, as if to purify the mess that lay behind. Vanessa’s blood was still on the floor, still on him. 

“This is the end Kevin. You are now accepted in the grin of the Smiling God. You are now free.”

Kevin didn’t know what it was, but despite the deep, aching hatred he had for Lauren, he felt a surge of relief, maybe even comfort. Everything he had ever defined himself on was freedom- freedom of speech, press, freedom of will. Lauren was the one who took that all away, but was now the one offering something better, something far more important. She was offering freedom of the mind. 

The warm light grew closer, buzzing like how insects might on a summer day. Kevin could almost see the blue sky as he stared up into the device with its holy, golden fabrics of evanescence. It was a beautiful day- hot, but not too arid, bright, but not quite cloudless, quiet, but not exactly still.

And then it all went dark. The light unfolded in his eyes, and the world vanished. He felt blood run down his face, but it was warm like that summer day. He felt tears sting on his cheeks, but they were dried up and never to be replaced again. He felt his mouth twitch into a sad, reluctant smile, but it was not untrue. It was still a smile that he had chosen to wear, one that he had accepted, and one that was also bleeding. Better to not be able to see so he didn’t have to see Vanessa’s blood. Better not to frown so he didn’t have to feel. So he smiled blindly, bloodily. 

“Kev you are going to love being a Strex employee! You will be so good at it!”

Kevin nodded, unable to speak, unable to elaborate. He had just simply run out of words, no more words for Desert Bluffs, for himself, for Vanessa. 

“We already have our first task! We must host the Night Vale community radio, that’ll be fun, huh!”

“Oh yes, Lauren. Yes.”

No more blood, no more pain or ache, but that day. That warm, perfect, beautiful day filling every gap of his mind, swallowing up every part of Kevin, and it was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading and feedback is always appreciated. Stay tuned for the last chapter, which won't be too long or complicated or anything, really just an epilogue. 
> 
> Aside from that, a new story must be in the makings. Any ideas? Any specific show/whatever you guys want me to write? Until then, peace out.


	7. Acceptance of a New Symphony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys, so this is it. I figured I would just upload this the same day as chapter 6. Bring it all to a end and such. Like I said, this is an epilogue, and is pretty short. 
> 
> The last chapter-

The radio station at Night Vale looked a lot like the one at Desert Bluffs, or at least how it looked before Kevin redecorated it with the blood of all those salesmen. How he could tell without eyes? Kevin wasn’t too sure, he just knew that it looked similar. He knew that the chair was a bit too high, that the desk was cluttered in papers from years ago, and that such papers were repeatedly doodled upon. He knew that there was coffee set up in the back, and a place for the intern to sit. Even the ‘On Air’ sign was right where he would expect- hanging just above the door to the studio, crooked. 

He didn’t really know where the original host to Night Vale went. Maybe he went into hiding, maybe he was taken away like Kevin once was, or maybe, just maybe, his voice was a little stronger than Kevin’s. Whatever the case, it did not matter to Kevin. His duty was to now speak for Strex Corp, to chirp on air and spread this smiling pandemic. 

His leg bent strangely as he sat in front of the microphone, never quite recovering from when the Strex employees hit him with bats. His fingers were still crooked from Ryan’s sadism. Scars were still etched over him from his time in the belly of the Smiling god. It didn’t matter though, because he didn’t have to see them, as his eyes were gone. He didn’t have to be upset, because he was already smiling. 

“Good morning Night Vale!”

Lauren sat next to him, smiling just as wide as him. She told him that it was those who fought back the hardest that smiled the biggest by the end of all this, so Kevin had to wonder what the story was behind her own expression. Of course he would not ask, it was not dutiful to look into the past. He must only look happily into the future, beaming bright in oranges and yellows, accepting Strex’s simple radiance. Stories, Lauren’s story, was for later. 

“We would just like to casually remind you to keep working hard! Work is what the fruit of life is made from. You all are doing so well!”

'You are doing so well, Kev.' 

He was. He was doing very well. He sometimes tried to remember what his life was like before Strex, even though it was frowned upon to remember, and often found that he his memories only consisted of hurt. He sometimes would see faces- one round and happy, always cracking jokes. Another soft, freckled face, a woman with dark brown hair. He would sometimes see them, but they would be covered in blood, as if they were red ghosts from his past here to haunt him. Strex told him to focus on the present and the future, that he past held nothing for him, and they were right. They often were. The past hurt, it hurt more than his fingers or his leg, it hurt more than his head. It hurt something in him that was supposed to be shoved inside a box, put away for good. Something that was trying to tell him that hurting like that was a good thing, the right thing. No. The right thing was to abide the wishes of the Smiling god. It was to work hard. To be happy. To be a heidenist.

'Screw the Heidenist!' 

Something he might have said once, in a life long ago. A sadder, darker life. Now every day was good, warm, serene and tranquil. He had elapsed from worries, he had abandoned all hurt, and for the first time he felt happy. Truly, fully happy, and the glee would not wear off. 

“What a beautiful day to work hard!”

“Yes, the Smiling god is good to show us such a beautiful day!”

“I can almost hear the birds singing from in here, Lauren.”

He did hear their music, the music of the birds singing and bugs humming and people walking by, but it was all up in his head. All played out in this symphony, a clear, pristine melody of of solidarity, without need of fortitude. Here he was, smiling along to the glorious tune, almost feeling the sun beat down on him as he spoke into the microphone. 

“What a beautiful sound they make.”

“Yes, Kevin. What a wonderful symphony they sing.”

A wonderful symphony. A new symphony. One unfurled and stretched out for all to see the power of Strex Corp. But behind that, under the layers of beaming, perfect delight, sang something darker. Something Kevin no longer needed to hear, a music from his past. In the core of his orange and yellow soul played these bloody, dark, twisted symphonies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! Thank you all so much for sticking around for the whole story, you all mean so much to me. I left some hints to return to this story, if I ever feel the calling, but for now, this is the wrap. *sigh*
> 
> Aside from that, a new story must be written! Anything you guys specifically want me to write about? Any specific book, show, etc? I was thinking something kind of like horror or something, but not as torturous as this. 
> 
> Again, thank you for reading! See you all in the not so distant future!
> 
> (As always, feedback will be heeded in godly standards).


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